extremity of anguish and
danger they find greater joys than in the midst of splendor, ease and the
intoxicating pleasures of life; for what we call happiness is the
constant guest of those who have within reach that for which their souls
most ardently long, irrespective of place and outward circumstances.

So these two in their prison were what they had not been for a long time:
full of heartfelt bliss; Paula with his letter, which he had begun at the
Kadi's house, and in which he poured out his whole soul to her; Orion in
the possession of her roses, on which he feasted his eyes and heart, and
which lay before him while he wrote the following lines, which the
kindhearted warder willingly transmitted to her:

Lo! As night in its gloom and horror fell on my prison,
Methought the sun sank black, dark forever in death.

I drew thy roses up, and behold! from their crimson petals
Beamed a glory of light, a glow as of sunshine and day!

Love! Love is the star that rose with those fragrant flowers;
Rose, as Phoebus' car comes up from the tossing waves.

Is not the ardent flame of a heart that burns with passion
Like the sparkling glow-worm hid in the heart of the rose?

While it yet was day, and we breathed in freedom and gladness,
While the sun still shone, that light seemed small and dim;

But now, when night has fallen, sinister, dark, portentous,
Its kindly ray beams forth to raise our drooping souls.

As seeds in the womb of earth break from the brooding darkness,
Or as the soul soars free, heaven-seeking from the grave,

So the hopeless soil of a dungeon blossoms to rapture,
Blooms with roses of Love, more sweet than the wildling rose!

And when had Paula ever felt happier than at the moment when this
offering from her lover, this humble prison-flower, first reached her.

Old Betta could not hear the verses too often, and cried with joy, not at
the poem, but at the wonderful change it had produced in her darling.
Paula was now the radiant being that she had been at home on the Lebanon;
and when she appeared before the assembled judges in the hall of justice
they gazed at her in amazement, for never had a woman on her trial for
life or death stood in their presence with eyes so full of happiness. And
yet she was in evil straits. The just and clement Kadi, himself the
loving father of daughters, felt a pang at his heart as he noted the
delusive confidence which so